The Top Ten Moments From New York Comic Con

Posted by Haley Tomsheck

10 years ago

If San Diego Comic Con is “geek prom,” then this past weekend’s New York Comic Con is the “geek winter formal.” Now in its fourth year, New York Comic Con is becoming a major source of movie previews, celebrity signings, and geek-friendly news. As a full-fledged geek myself, I’m happy to share with you my top ten moments from the dance.

10. Saturday Night Live stars tackle Spider-ManDuring the Mondo Marvel panel, SNL-ers Bill Hader and Seth Meyers announced their upcoming Spider-man one-shot comic, The Short Halloween, which sees a Spidey costumer getting mistaken for the actual wall-crawler. Sounds cool, but I was hoping Hader and Meyers would follow Obama’s lead and actually appear in an issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

9. Pixar debuts another winner with Up
Director Pete Doctor ( Monsters, Inc. ) and producer Jonas Rivera debuted clips (and a full 45 minutes) of Up, the latest Pixar gem. Hilarious and colorful, the footage indicates that Pixar is going back to straight-up comedy after the more serious Wall-E.

8. A Hulk that will haunt my nightmares Kudos to the passionate fan/potential crazy person who built this giant Hulk costume, which naturally took the audience prize at the costume contest. That said, did the eyes have to be so creepy?

7. Spider-Man and His Amazing (action figure) Friends
While Tobey Maguire won’t be palling around with Iceman and Firestar on the big screen anytime soon, fans of ’80s cartoon Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends are finally getting action figures to call their own. The trio will be released in a three-pack later this year, which is thankfully free of Ms. Lion — the Amazing Friends’ precocious puppy.

6. Bruce Willis’ hair in The Surrogates trailerDisney unveiled the trailer for their fall scifi film The Surrogates, based on the Top Shelf graphic novel. Willis plays a cop (big surprise) in a world where humans use android surrogates to live out their fantasies. While it looks like a fairly entertaining mash-up of Total Recall , Strange Days and every other scifi movie from the last ten years, I gotta ask: What’s with Willis’ weird robot hair? Did his contract stipulate that his bald head must at all times be covered by a Clay Aiken wig?

5. The copy of the 1989 Punisher movie I scored for $5Granted, that’s $5 more than anyone should probably spend on a movie that doesn’t even bother to have star Dolph Lundgren wear the Punisher skull emblem. But the unintentional comedy value the film provides is worth at least $10 bucks.

4. McG (and everyone else) cracks Christian Bale jokes
Last week’s leaked Christian Bale rant on the set of Terminator: Salvation was the talk of the con. Everyone from Ultimate Spider-Man writer Brian Michael Bendis to Salvation director McG cracked wise about the incident — McG told an audience member who asked about the rant, “What don’t you f-ing understand?”

3. The Dark Knight producer Michael Uslan shares Batman war stories
During his panel, producer/Batman movie godfather Michael Uslan discussed the arduous, ten year process of bringing 1989’s Batman to the big screen. He recalled one studio exec in particular who thoughtt a Batman movie would never work
because Annie had tanked at the box office: “After all, Michael,
they’re both out of the funny pages,” the exec told him. Uslan’s dream of a dark and gritty Batman film eventually came true, and he’s been with the character ever since.

2. New Watchmen footage is heavy on the Rorschach Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons gave fans a look at a scene of an imprisoned (and unmasked) Rorschach taking down a burly inmate with a dose of fryer grease to the face. Jackie Earle Haley absolutely nails Rorschach, who looks to be the film’s breakout character. There’s a reason why Rorschach costumes were so ubiquitous at the con: He’s this year’s Joker.

1. My geek winter formal date, the Greatest American HeroYes, that’s a photo of me with William Katt, a.k.a TV’s Greatest American Hero. Katt (joined by his former GAH costar Robert Culp) was at the con promoting his new comic book Sparks, and gave me the scoop on the upcoming Greatest American Hero movie reboot (It’s in the script stage). Why is this my number one moment? Because after all the movie sneak peeks, comics news announcements, and skintight Spider-Woman costumes, NY Comic Con is still about fans interacting with the people whose work inspires them. That, and after the picture we slow-danced to “Endless Love.”

When not writing for places like The Onion and HBO, Nick Nadel is in line at the comic book store alongside the other geeks, er, fans of speculative fiction. His most prized possession is a 1960s Batman comic wherein the Dynamic Duo are trapped inside a fortune cookie factory.